Travel time for non-exempt employee

danaf

I am looking for guidance concerning how to pay a non-exempt employee for travel time. In this particular scenario, an employee is flying to a conference on a Thursday. The employee will then return a week from the following Monday. All other employees (exempt) are returning over the weekend. This particular employee is staying a couple of extra days for vacation and that is why the return flight is delayed. Do I pay travel time on both flights? The normal work hours are M-F 8-5. My interpretation of the DOL is that I should probably pay the travel time on both flights just to be safe. Thanks in advance for any advice that can be given!

NeedCoffee

Hmmm. My understanding from the DOL is that travel time spent in a plane, bus, train etc. is non-compensable when outside the home community. Since they are flying, I think this applies:

[url]http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs22.pdf[/url]

See the portion on "Travel Away from Home Community" in the above DOL document.

davids

My understanding is that overnight travel (not returning the same day) is only compensable when the travel hours cut across the employee's regular work hours, even on a non-work day. Since your employee regularly works M-F, 8-5; you would only pay for travel time that is between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Of course, if the employee is actually doing work while in transit (reviewing reports, preparing material, etc.), then that time is compensable as the employee is performing work tasks.